I am a sucker for Spotify’s “wrapped” feature, the personal playlist and accompanying animation it makes for users every December filled with data about their listening habits over the previous 11 months. Every year I know it’s coming, and still I’m delighted by it. I listen to music in February and September conscious of how that listening will be represented in “wrapped.” There are always surprises–some pleasant, some cringy.
Did I expect four of my 10 most listened to songs of the year to come from the same album, the glorious return of my adolescent musical obsession, Del Amitri? Absolutely. Did I expect my second most played song of 2021 to be a kitschy Toto impression by John Mayer? Nope.
YoRocko! 
Hmm. It’s fun to see you enjoying things here and sharing your joy. Thank you. I don’t use Spotify yet, but I am beginning to see the light. As for my own listening, my record player is about six years old, so I was able to adopt a lot of Dad’s LPs — and 45s and even 78s — when he moved to assisted living, and we got in a lot of talks about them as I discovered just what I gained. Meanwhile, my guesses for my most-listened-to would include most of two comedy albums from the mid-60s, “At the Drop of a Hat” and “At the Drop of Another Hat,” by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. Cousins taught me “The Hippopotamus Song” ages ago; the chorus of “Mud, mud, glorious mud!” gets me through messy days.